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Yokai Modern Breakthrough
It all began with one man's work, Mizuki Shigeru, and then other artists following a few years later, such as Astro Boy's creator, Tezuka Osamu. Mizuki Shigeru's Early Influences Born as Mura Shigeru, and growing up in Sakaiminato city, Tottori Prefecture,Mizuki Shigeru's early introduction to yokai started at a young age. In growing up, Mizuki had a nanny named Kageyama Fusa, who also served as an ogamiya-san, a shaman/priest, for the village. At the age of five, Mizuki didn't attend school like his siblings, as he had a late start; he wasn't able to learn how to talk until he was four. So Mizuki ended up staying home with the nanny where she began to teach him about spirits and yokai. In rural Tottori Prefecture, during the prewar era, the life realities of famine, poverty and infectious diseases resulted in several deaths in the Mizuki's home; he experienced death at an early age. The ghost stories that his nanny had told him piqued Mizuki's curiosity in what happens after death. Zília. Anime and Its Roots in Early Japanese Monster Art. Leiden: BRILL, 2010, 48 The second catalyst for Mizuki was when he was sent as a soldier in the First World War, where he lost an arm in an air raid. His ventures in the Papua New Guinean jungles, are what Mizuki sparked his interest in yokai more, as he claims he met the yokai Nurikabe, a yokai that appears to wearied travelers. During his recovery time that he befriended friendly tirbesmen called the Tolai nearby, where he spent time frequently visiting them. 53 In his visits there, he can't help but notice that their lifestyle is untouched by modern day society and gives off an otherwordliness vibe which makes him feel he's come upon another realm. Michael Dylan. Pandemonium and Parade : Japanese Monsters and the Culture of Yokai. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2008. 178-179 After the war, Mizuki returned home in 1945, where he then enrolled in art school Musashino Art School (now currently Musashino Art University). Once he finished art school, Mizuki produced several kashihon(rental) manga with the eerie theme of the supernatural from 1951 to 1957; one of them being Hakaba Kitaro in 1954. Hakaba Kitaro was completed by 1960, where it then started being published as an actual manga series in the magazine Garo.Zília 54 Gegegeno Kitaro Behind the Content Due to the success of Hakaba Kitaro, it quickly became one of the first animated series featuring yokai in 1968 under the name Gegegeno Kitaro. The yokai within the series goes through a progression in regard to their visual references. For the most part, Mizuki draws upon Toriyama Sekien's artwork for character design in referencing yokai, but later on in the series he draws upon folk art depictions ranging from the Muromachi period to the Meiji period. 64-66 One of these Meiji sources is Takehara Shunsen's Ehon Hyaku Monogatari( Picture Book of One Hundred Scary Stories), which is a follow-up to Sekien's work, that also features yokai that aren't in Sekien's catalogues. In other cases, Mizuki reworked the entire visual representation of a yokai, but would still keep its function and role as they were. 105-106 The Impact Mizuki's work here created a bridge from the modern and postwar Japan to it's historic past with yokai. These fear-created creatures of Japan's past have been extracted from then and reborn into the modern era as playful toys for children. He also illuminates the human dynamic of imagination and fear in the creation of new yokai as a reflection of the traditional yokai to illustrate that the process can still happen now.Michael Dylan, 181-183 Since the debut of the series, the yokai have been suscepted into a form of domestication in mascotization, where they've 'evolved' into a form more pleasing for the young audience. Zília, 129-130 Modern Yokai The new yokai are normally urban legends that wouldn't define them as yokai, however with the desire of the people for the continuity of monsters, some of these achieve this title. For instance the kuchi-sake-onna which is a woman with cut slits on the edges of her mouth; nothing particularly supernatural aside from her superhuman speed and distorted face, but at the same time there is still that element of fear and imagination within children that gets retold and reinvented over time. Yokai, both new and old are capable of adapting to the new landscapes of the city and suburbs just like how people started to adapt in the age of industrialization and modernization. 185-187